Bread and Wine: Magical White Bean Soup

If ever there was needful night for soup, this was it.

We got some snow in our corner of Tennessee today, with icy wind this morning which softened to just a bright, sunny cold this afternoon. The kids and I stayed home (I try to have a day or two of the week where we don't get anywhere) and what I had planned to be a fun and simple day turned raw as my daughter decided to be 3 allll day and my son figured teasing his sister was the best way to pass the time. Our normally 12-hour days turned out to be approximately 527-hours by 2:30 p.m.

On days like that I usually want to throw everyone in the car and escape to the nearest restaurant for dinner. I thought about it, but if  I had, it would have meant not getting to this recipe, so I stuck it out, but in the end for more than that reason alone.

Before I get into the thick, yummy lot of the recipe, I will just say ahead of time that yeah, this is pretty magical--meat, gluten and dairy free it dresses up easily while being more than tasty on its own. Its comfortableness reminds me of the comfort of mashed potatoes--thick and hot and just a bit of creamy.

Let's dig in.

The Recipe: Magical White Bean Soup
Ingredients: Olive oil, Shallots, carrots, fennel bulb, celery, cannellini beans, rosemary. 
Optional: parmesan cheese, prosciutto, balsamic vinaigrette

Okay, looking over that list of ingredients, which one do you have NO idea what it is? If you say, "fennel bulb," then we can still be friends. What in the world? I checked my Kroger Clicklist options and no such thing as "fennel bulb" existed (I should have Googled to know what I was even looking for). Nervous that one exotic (for me) ingredient was going to cost me several errands around town with wiggly toddlers in tow, I made the backup plan of using dried fennel seed. Thankfully a trip to Publix and a short chat with a produce stocker led me to the Dill-y looking weed, er, bulb, and I proudly took home my new find to complete my soup.

And that's my story about fennel bulb.

ANYWAY, this soup.

It's simple, almost too simple. My only trip-up was starting with too-small of a pot. This recipe makes a LOT of soup, easily 10-12 servings, so when choosing your cookware, you're gonna wanna bring out the big pot.

I followed Shauna's instructions without mishap except the carrots. As I've mentioned before, my family can't handle carrot chunks (I don't know, don't ask) so I grated, instead of sliced, those suckers. In the spirit of production authenticity, though,  I didn't skimp the celery (even though I wanted to) and it cooked up just fine.

From the first simmering session (about 20 minutes) this soup tasted good--perfectly rustic and the kind of thing you really wanted sit down with on the rest of a cold Wednesday. The kids didn't care for it (they're not really about beans other than black), but I snarfed down my share. The prosciutto is  a great touch, more refined than just plain beans and bacon, and the parmesan cheese adds a little flavor structure. I think my favorite part was pouring on the balsamic vinaigrette-- that stuff seems to be the secret weapon of any soup. Its sweet pucker adds a great layer to the beans' mealiness and paired with a good piece of whole grain bread and butter, it was, well, my mouth is watering over here just by remembering it.

The Chapter: Magical White Bean Soup (same name)
Funny how on this particularly stressful day that this recipe follows a reflection by Shauna on the importance of "nursery food", the thick, comforting, everyday foods that fortify us and yes, comfort our minds and bodies during stressful times.

Yes, just that. This is really the reason I cook.

I mentioned above that I decided again a restaurant run after a fussy day with the kids, and I did so because right, I'm on day three of this writing challenge/blog project and I really want to finish. But even more than that I wanted comfort, and my kids needed comfort, and that was actually something a restaurant couldn't give me.

I'm not saying I don't eat out, I do! And I love it! But I'm finding more and more than when I am in need of deep, down to my toes nourishment, it usually needs to come from my own kitchen.

Today, standing in the kitchen I debated: "I'm exhausted. The kids are fussy. If I make soup for supper that means we're staying home and I don't know if I can do that and stay sane with two crazy kids. This won't work."

Anyone with children can testify that cooking with cranky babies is no joke, but the more I thought about it, and thought about the reasons the kids were cranky, and the fact that I was tired and cranky, it more than likely meant that we needed something soothing, something warm and fragrant and that could tell our senses that everything is okay. Because seriously, it was, it was just a very off-day with the cold. And I wasn't sure a noisy, bustling restaurant could comfort us.

So I made soup.

And when my bouncy three year old got from her (no-sleeping) nap, she insisted we make carrot cake just like in the Pooh book she was reading. So we made cake together, on a cold Wednesday afternoon.

I don't mean to brag, but my kitchen smelled like fragrant bean soup and frickin' carrot cake the rest of the day. If that's not therapy for the senses, I don't know what is.

More than a responsibility or something I'm checking off my list right now, I feel calmed and comforted by the act of cooking and (usually) deeply nourished by what I create. To me, these acts of cooking, even on hard days (and lemme say I have my share of Moe's runs when things are unbearable!) the creating I do in the kitchen affirms the meaning of home and family to me, the togetherness my husband and I try to cultivate.

It's messy, granted, but even so, it means something, this comfort, this togehjerness. I was there, the kids were there, in our home, reminding ourselves that we were safe, we were okay, and we were alright, all over soup, cheese, bread, and carrot cake.